Letter Late Than Never, a second-chance small-town romance from Lauren Connolly, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!
Can a hot paramedic resuscitate this mail woman’s flatlining spirit of adventure?
Gwen Elsmere fell in love with Sebastian Kirkwood when she was sixteen, but a dead frog stole her chance to land the guy of her daydreams. Ten years later, when Gwen makes a desperate 9-1-1 call, Sebastian re-enters her life as the first paramedic on the scene. Unfortunately, she’s smeared in blood, and he’s engaged to another woman. The awkward rescue is far from the passionate reunion she’d secretly hoped for. Still, Gwen’s brief transformation from postal worker to neighborhood hero has her reevaluating her cautious nature.
If she can save a woman’s life, why can’t she change her own?
As Gwen challenges herself with adventures, big and small, she discovers an unlikely sidekick in her former crush. Sebastian reveals glimpses of the goofy teenager who first made her swoon, but there are shadows behind his eyes she wants to shine a light on. When Gwen discovers the sexy EMT is not as spoken for as everyone in Green Valley believes, she dares to hope for a second chance to risk her heart. But even as a chemist cat, drag queens, and glitter beards reward her new outgoing nature, secrets, pain, and fear threaten to snuff out her courageous spirit.
Gwen will have to decide if Sebastian and she are better late than never or better never together.
‘Letter Late Than Never’ is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #3 in the Green Valley Heroes series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Lauren Connolly is an award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal romance stories. She’s lived among mountains, next to lakes, and in imaginary worlds. Lauren can never seem to stay in one place for too long, but trust that wherever she’s residing there is a dog who thinks he’s a troll, twin cats hiding in the couch, and bookshelves bursting with stories written by the authors she loves.
ROYALLY IN TROUBLE, a brand new sexy, royal romance from USA Today bestselling author Meghan Quinn, will be releasing on June 6th in all formats! Full of sweltering heat, suspense, and mystery, get ready to be surprised with twists and turns alongside a perfect happily ever after. Check out the cover below, and pre-order your copy today!
I have two responsibilities as the new heir to the throne:
1. Get married. 2. Have babies.
Sure, becoming queen one day is part of those new responsibilities, but as long as King Theo is in charge, I don’t have to add a coronation to my list.
That’s why I find myself in the throes of wedding planning, pre-wedding classes with my broody, over-protective fiancé, and counting down the days until we can finally say I do.
But with every day we grow closer to our wedding, we seem to grow apart.
Our commonalities are tested. Our faith in each other is questioned. And our safety is threatened. The only thing working? The command he has over me in the bedroom.
I keep telling myself, it’ll all work out. We just need to make it to the wedding day. Except, when the day finally comes, everything falls apart.
We might have made it through the last few months together, but now I’m not sure we’re going to make it out of this alive.
Can’t wait to get ROYALLY IN TROUBLE in your hands and ears? Mark your calendars for June 6th and text “READ” to (719) 223-3077 to be alerted when it is LIVE!
Samantha Brentmoor, John Hartley, and James Joseph are narrating in duet this sexy, royal romance with a twist, and you will not want to miss their performances! ROYALLY IN TROUBLE will be released on June 6th in a live release on Audible!
ABOUT MEGHAN QUINN:
USA Today Bestselling Author, wife, adoptive mother, and peanut butter lover. Author of romantic comedies and contemporary romance, Meghan Quinn brings readers the perfect combination of heart, humor, and heat in every book.
Never miss another NEW RELEASE, text READ to 474747.
Elisa Leal is looking for some joy in her life. Years of tragedy and struggle took their toll, and now she is searching for new connections to raise her spirits. When she discovers proof that her biological father is alive, she decides to find him and make contact. Her quest leads her to the small town of Bliss, Colorado, and the strangest man she’s ever met—Mel Hughes. He believes in aliens and sasquatch conspiracies, but he’s also kind of awesome. And there might be even more in Bliss to make her smile.
Sylvan Dean and Hale Galloway have enjoyed wandering their way through life, always in motion. Always searching for the woman who could make their life complete. Living in Bliss made them realize it’s time to settle down. Van’s finally going to college and has a job lined up with his brother when he finishes. That job is in Dallas, and while Hale is happy for Van, he can’t imagine leaving Bliss behind. It feels like everything is coming apart until they meet Elisa. She’s the one they have been searching for, and she is worth the wait.
The future looks bright until the guys’ past comes back to haunt them. Danger lurks in every corner, but it may not be the biggest threat to their happily ever after. The citizens of Bliss know how to handle a killer, but handling Elisa, Van, and Hale might require some cosmic intervention.
Download today on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Kobo!
New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake lives in North Texas with her husband and three kids. Since starting her publishing journey in 2010, she’s sold over three million copies of her books. She began writing at a young age, concentrating on plays and journalism. It wasn’t until she started writing romance that she found success. She likes to find humor in the strangest places and believes in happy endings.
Tough Cookie, an all-new heartfelt fake dating small-town romance from Talia Hunter, is now available in Kindle Unlimited!
Noah Malone is back in his hometown for a short break from his stunt work, but his mother’s set on convincing him to settle down in Green Valley so he can give her grandbabies like the good Lord intended. Not only is she pushing him to help out at the Donner Bakery decorating cookies, but her matchmaking is relentless.
To end his mother’s awkward set-ups, Noah needs a no-strings-attached pretend girlfriend. And who better than Carla, a mysterious recluse who seems to have taken an instant dislike to him? When she reveals she’s been isolated by illness, he proposes a fake relationship that’ll stop his momma’s shenanigans and help Carla ease back into the world.
Tech-geek Carla creates a spreadsheet of fake-date challenges. She’s serious and focused on her goal of slowly becoming more social… until daredevil Noah starts messing with her spreadsheet. He’s ridiculously charming, and his sexy additions may be even more appealing than the cookies he brings her, but Carla won’t let her resistance crumble.
Opposites may attract, but can such different people find a recipe for love?
‘Tough Cookie’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #3 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Pulling my truck up in front of our old farmhouse, the first thing I noticed was how enormous the old oak tree behind the house had grown, and how far its branches stretched over the roof. I made a mental note to trim it back.
The house was even prettier than I remembered, mostly because someone had placed potted herbs along the porch rail to soak up the winter sunshine. My mother had said she hadn’t sent anyone over to check on things since her tenant had moved in, yet the place looked well maintained. The vegetable beds had been covered with cold frames, and the plants inside seemed to be thriving. And chickens were scratching around in the large run I built for Momma years ago.
Who was the mysterious tenant who grew her own food and never asked for anything?
Maybe she was on the run, or in witness protection. She could have stolen a bunch of money before holing herself up in the isolated house and was living in constant fear of being found by the feds. Though in all honesty, that was the plot of the last movie I’d worked on.
Still, when I mounted the steps to the porch with the jar of cookies under my arm—to my credit, it was still more than half full—and knocked on the front door, I was ready for just about anything.
Anything, that was, except what actually happened.
When the door swung open and I saw the woman in the doorway, my jaw loosened. Momma had called her pretty, and though it was a true statement, it didn’t do her justice.
The woman’s face shape was delicate, but her eyes, cheekbones, and lips were generous, like she’d managed to swipe a little more than her fair share. Her eyes were a rich brown. She had dark, wavy hair that fell past her shoulders and was tucked neatly behind her ears. She was wearing thick, fuzzy socks, sweatpants, and what looked like several layers of warm tops. Despite the layers, her bombshell curves were obvious.
I was struck speechless. But it wasn’t just her beauty that made words dry up. It was the way she was looking at me.
Her gaze traveled up from my boots, over my jeans, and cut a slow path across the jersey I’d worn to keep my mother happy. It brushed over the jar of cookies on its way, and grazed my freshly trimmed beard. Her gaze stopped short of reaching my eyes, however. It jerked back to the cookies. And all the while, a frown creased her brow.
She didn’t look happy to see me. The opposite, in fact.
About Talia Hunter
Talia Hunter likes to include her three favorite things in her novels: toe-curling romance, snort-laughs, and heart-warming friendships. She recently moved to Australia’s beautiful Gold Coast, where she’s constantly amazed and not at all freaked out by the weird and wonderful critters. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her with a glass of wine, a good book, at least one of her three cats, and a jumbo-sized can of bug spray.
Dough You Love Me?, an all-new second chance small-town romance from Stacy Travis, is now available in Kindle Unlimited!
First rule when returning to your hometown after storming out of sight: don’t fall for the guy who broke your heart.
Julia Browne should know better than to kiss where she bakes. She’s built a bread empire in California, and only plans to stay in Green Valley long enough to sell the family house.
She certainly won’t spend any more time with Shane Meadows than she has to…and she will not let him draw her in with his soft blue eyes or level her with his handsome smirk of a grin.
The last thing she wants is a temporary gig at Donner Bakery, baking sourdough side-by-side with Shane and clashing with his ego. And he thinks the sassy baker should take her fancy bread and go back where she came from.
But that’s before they take a series of wrong turns on a road trip to look at wheat, leaving them stranded for the night. Out on the open road, neither of them can escape the sizzling attraction and old feelings that feel a lot more real this time around.
But life is complicated, and Julia’s life in California might derail their second chance at love. Will they wake up and smell the sourdough?
They say you should leave the past in the past, but what if it’s the winning recipe for love?
‘Dough You Love Me?’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #2 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
My eyes traveled to one of the musicians who stood out from the others, not just because he was tall and lean with a dark shock of hair hanging over his forehead. He sat playing the French horn, a gleaming gorgeous pretzel of brass with a bell at one end.
The sound was a love language that spoke directly to my heart.
But an intricately curved, soulful symphony instrument at a country music jam session full of Tennessee local boys . . . WTF?
I didn’t have to be a country music aficionado to know that one of these things was not like the others.
Every other instrument came from the string family—banjo, guitar, fiddle. An older man with a gray beard stood behind Cletus playing the bass, plucking the strings, and nodding along with the music.
The faces in the room started looking more familiar. Maybe I’d known some of them once. Maybe I wasn’t such a stranger. Not that it mattered, since I had no plans of sticking around afterward to chat. I felt worn out from the funeral and the travel.
But . . . that horn . . .
My eyes remained riveted to the instrument and the man playing it. I’d been to a couple of orchestra performances with a full brass section. Those were the types of places people normally found a French horn—with musicians wearing tuxedos and following a conductor.
This man and his instrument stuck out like a glossy gemstone in a sea of wicker and cardboard. And yet, oddly, it worked. He pursed his lips and blew out notes that had no business sounding so beautiful.
Nodding and stomping one foot, he picked up the rhythm of the other instruments and made his accompaniment sound like it belonged there.
He kept one hand in the bell-shaped end of the horn and used his other hand to draw out a melodic sound. From the first note, he had me willing to follow him down whatever path he took. For the first time since I’d arrived in town—hell, for the first time in months—I felt a glimmer of happiness. Double-chocolate cupcake happiness.
I wanted to hear more, and at the same time, I knew exactly what I would hear. Something in his beautiful aching call sounded familiar, as though I’d been hearing it my whole life.
But that was impossible.
I hadn’t been in town in years. Even if I’d heard this man play before, it had to have been so long ago that surely the sounds wouldn’t be familiar now.
The music called, and I answered by freeing myself of the funereal black jacket I wore over a white tank top and getting comfortable leaning against the wall. As a spectator, I had license to gaze at him for as long as I wanted.
My senses scrambled and competed for which one should win out—the sight of him, the sound of his music, or the touch I felt from him halfway across a crowded room.
Taking a couple steps closer, I cautiously took in the whole of the man playing the gleaming horn. He looked about my age, early thirties, and the strong cut of his jaw and short beard made things happen to my lady parts that hadn’t happened in a very long time.
He wore a dark brown corduroy sport coat over a fine-checked plaid flannel shirt and dark blue jeans. His eyes were a pale blue, like an illusion of shallow water that actually runs deep enough to be dangerous. Soulful. Like repositories of hurt or art or knowledge.
Almost as though he could feel the heat of my stare, his eyes fastened to mine and didn’t let go.
So I did the only logical thing a person could do when faced with a sexy, soulful stranger’s lingering gaze.
I ran from the room.
About Stacy Travis
Stacy Travis writes charming, spicy romance about bookish, sassy women and the hot alphas who fall for them.
Writing makes her infinitely happy, but that might be the coffee talking.
She’s worked as a journalist, camp counselor, TV writer, SAT tutor, corporate finance researcher, education technology editor, and non-fiction author. When she’s not on a deadline, she’s in running shoes complaining that all roads seem to go uphill. Or on the couch with a margarita. Or fangirling at a soccer game.
She’s never met a dog she didn’t want to hug. And if you have no plans for Thanksgiving, she’ll probably invite you to dinner.
Stacy lives in Los Angeles with her very tall sons and a poorly-trained rescue dog who hoards socks. And she’s serious about the Thanksgiving thing.
Tropes: runaway bride; single dad; dad of twins; forced proximity; grump/sunshine; opposites attract
“It’s me choosing you —- just you. As you are.”
Thus far, in the month of May, Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love is my favorite romance book. This is part Runaway Bride, Sound of Music, and Notting Hill. Two tropes that instantly grab my attention are found in this book: single dad and grump/sunshine. And Austin, Harlow’s MMC, is drawn as deliciously hot, but a grumpyumpleton to his core. Harlow balances his curmudgeon nature with two precocious twins and a family who humbles him daily. Her FMC, Veronica aka Roni, challenges him, through her sunny disposition, to recognize his self-sacrifice and consider choosing his dreams. Conversely, Austin helps Roni recognize the importance of expecting people to love her on her terms. As they work through their separate issues, Harlow infuses spice and humor, sweetness and challenge to engage her readers’ feelings, and the combination of these things causes the reader to gobble the book. At least, I did. Austin and Roni excited me, and I didn’t realize that I’d been missing the draw of reading until I fell into Austin ad Roni’s story. I felt indignant for Roni’s betrayal, cheered Austin’s sister when she decided to invite Roni to be a nanny for Austin’s children, grew annoyed with Austin’s instant judgment of Roni, became elated when Roni showed her beautiful soul, was titillated by Austin and Roni’s chemistry, and grew emotional as both Austin and Roni recognized that he needed to choose himself and his dreams and she needed to be chosen period.
Grab Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love if you need something to read that feeds your soul. This book will make you laugh, become misty-eyed, and fog your glasses all in one pass. This book is a total homerun.
Tropes: friends to lovers; romantic suspense; small-town romance; found family; band of brothers
Catherine Cowles is a supreme wizard when it comes to romantic suspense, although I want to make sure she’s “okay” half the time when her poor heroines encounter so much trauma in her romances. Echoes of You is dramatic and heart-rending and joyful and steamy and sweet and page-turning. From its beginning, Cowles captures her reader’s attention with her heroine’s painful background. While its beginning isn’t as dramatic as the first book of Cowles’s Lost & Found series, it’s serious and emotional as we encounter the painful reality of Maddie’s life. Over and over again, Cowles pummels her reader with the trauma from Maddie’s childhood and her broken relationship with her ex-fiance. Maddie’s journey is redeemed when Nash finally allows himself to love her as he has always wanted.
One minute, Cowles takes us from pain and despair to the summit of love as Maddie and Nash accept their long percolating feelings. But Cowles wouldn’t be her usual genius self unless she puts her MMC and FMC through trials. And poor Nash and Maddie must endure an onslaught of villainy to find their happy ending. Through it all, as a beloved reader, you know that the promise of a happy ending is on the horizon, and Cowles treats us to an especially sweet one with these two. To be fair, they deserve all the happiness in the world given the drama of their journeys.
What should you expect ultimately from Echoes of You? Lots of action that put Maddie and Nash in peril along with sentimental moments filled with Nash’s family protecting and loving Maddie beyond measure. Add to that a tension-filled journey of two friends who fight their feelings before they finally realize that their love is fated and incomparable. You cannot put down Catherine Cowles’s Echoes of You. And you will hope that the next book in the series comes soon.
Tropes: second chance romance; small-town romance; Penny Reid-inspired romance; going home
Stacy Travis’s Dough You Love Me? has found an apt home in Penny Reid’s crafted Smartypants Romance world. Set in the Donner Bakery series, the story follows Julia, who has returned to Green Valley after her grandmother’s death. Julia ran from Green Valley when she was younger because she was spurned by her crush, Shane. Never realizing that Shane felt like he wasn’t good for her, she left town and stayed away. She realizes she has stayed away too long in the shadow of her grandmother’s death. When she encounters Shane at the Friday jam session, long-buried feelings rise to the surface, and she runs again. Thankfully, she only runs as far as her grandmother’s home. As a friend of Cletus Winston, he connects her with his love, Jennifer Sylvester nee Winston who needs her help making bread. It becomes immediately clear that Julia will be working with Shane. As these two spend time together, those buried feelings find flight, and Shane and Julia fall in love in the specter of their past. Eventually, Julia decides to stay in Green Valley, finding her future with Shane.
Dough You Love Me? provides enough of that tension between falling in love and fighting the hurt feelings of one’s past. Julia and Shane engage in a tug-a-war of feelings until they simply can’t deny their attraction and love for each other. Through their story, Travis deftly points to how young people often struggle with differences. Shane’s story is wrapped up in his finding self-confidence in himself due to his disability. He rejects Julie out of a lack of confidence. When he finds music, specifically the French horn, he finds himself. When Julia returns to town years later, he is now able to love her despite his disability. Travis handles this storyline well.
I think Travis muted this message with the coincidence of Julia and Shane’s bread-making. On the one hand, she’s able to spend some time focusing on the importance of companies using local growers to source their ingredients. It’s an important message to consider, but I found it to undermine the larger message of Shane’s journey of self-acceptance. There were times when the story felt uneven as Travis had to balance what I felt were two storylines.
All in all, though, I loved Stacy Travis’s Dough You Love Me? as it returns us to the world of Cletus and Jennifer (even if they are sitting in the background), and it keeps us wrapped in the world of the Donner Baker’s delectable pastries and bread. I’m hoping we see more stories from Travis in this new world for her. I think Clay deserves a story in the Smartypants Romance world.
From USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Meagan Brandy comes a steamy forbidden romance featuring a possessive hero … who falls first and will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
Bastian Bishop. That’s his name.
He’s rough, rugged, and utterly unpredictable.
He’s not cautious or contemplative. He’s a volcano. Silent and steady one second, and a nightmare in the next.
But that’s not the worst of it.
This guy? He’s an outsider and in my world outsiders don’t belong.
They’re unwanted, unwelcome and known to disappear without a trace; yet he doesn’t seem to care.
After one night of reckless rebellion, the tattooed tyrant keeps coming back, sneaking into my world without permission, and causing trouble I can’t allow.
I should end this now before my father discovers his existence and does it for me, but he won’t allow it.
He says, like it or not … I am his now, that nothing and no one will stand in his way.
What he refuses to understand is I’m a Girl of Greyson, a coveted queen of sorts in the underground crime world.
He’s a nobody, an insignificant man with nothing to his name, marking him a threat to my own.
We could never be, but he won’t hear it.
And me? I know exactly how this ends.
Or so I thought I did, until betrayal burns so deep that suddenly nothing makes sense.
Meagan Brandy is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal
Bestselling Author of New Adult and Sports Romance books. Born and raised in California, she is a married mother of three crazy boys who keep her bouncing from one sports field to another, depending on the season, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Starbucks is her best friend and words are her sanity.
But for me, there was only one man and he was destined to be both.
I used to believe in fairytales.
I thought my happy ending was inevitable.
Until I lost my father, my home, and the gorgeous golden boy I loved in the blink of an eye.
I rebuilt my life with one thing in mind – certainty.
I didn’t get my happy ending, but I spent my days making other people’s come true.
I wasn’t happy, but I was in control.
It was enough.
Until my first love crash lands back into my life and
I start questioning everything about my perfectly constructed life.
I realize that I may have moved on but my heart stood absolutely still.
And when he asks for a second chance, I throw caution to the wind and say yes.
Back in the grown up arms of the man he’s become, I rediscover a passion and pleasure I’d forgotten existed.
But our second chance is a double edged sword that forces us to face the minefield of our complicated past.
He starts asking questions.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to ignore.
In the battle between my future and my past, will love be enough to overcome the secrets that tore us apart the first time?
Meet Dylan Allen:
Before I was “Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling Author, Dylan Allen”, I was a lawyer who was unhappy at work and a bookworm who wanted nothing more than to get lost in stories I loved. I’ve always written for myself as a creative outlet, but in the year leading up to my 40th birthday, I decided to do something that had always been on my bucket list…write a book.
I’m not an independently wealthy person and had no intention of leaving my career. I didn’t think it was even possible to make a living writing the stories that lived in my vast and dynamic imagination.
That book, now called Then Came You, was so warmly and broadly received that I decided to write another. And then another… And two years after I accidentally found this amazing career, I left my job and went all in on my dream.
It hasn’t been a smooth journey. It’s been full of volatile ups and downs. But, it’s been the most rewarding and exciting thing I’ve ever done.
My favorite part of this job is connecting with my readers. I’m so honored by the kind and interesting people who read my work and reach out to connect to me.
I write compelling, dramatic, emotional romances with exceptional, diverse characters you’ll root for and never forget.
I’m a self-proclaimed happily ever junkie, I loves creating stories where under dogs find a love worth fighting for. When I’m not writing or reading, eating, or cooking, I indulges my wanderlust by planning her next globe-trotting adventure.
I was born in Accra, Ghana, raised in Houston, Texas, and finds that home is where my heart is.
I’m a proud graduate of Tufts University, Howard University School of Law, and the London School of Economics. Nearly twenty years ago, I married the love of my very own book boyfriend and together we’re raising two wonderful sons who are the light of our lives.
I believe in the power of dreams and know that nothing is beyond our reach if we’re willing to work hard and step out of our comfort zone to grab it.
I hope you find hours of entertainment and joy in my books!
Professor Romance 